


Because That’s What Brothers Do

by salakavala



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Barely-there hint at future thorki if you squint, Fluff, Gen, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Kid Loki and Kid Thor (Marvel), Thor takes his new job as a big brother seriously, adoptive brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 10:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18313892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salakavala/pseuds/salakavala
Summary: Thor gets a little brother and makes the most important promise of his life.





	Because That’s What Brothers Do

 

Before Loki came to live with them, Frigga had taken Thor aside and explained to him that yes, Thor was going to get a little brother, and no, it wasn’t because Thor had been loudly demanding one since he had learnt that other children had siblings. There were bigger things in motion, and Thor would do well to remember that he wouldn’t always get what he wanted just because he was a prince and wished for it.

Thor, naturally, disregarded that. To him it was simple: he was the prince of Asgard, he had wanted a little brother, and so he was going to get one.

His little brother proved to be a curious little creature. He was blue, for one, and had red eyes, and strange pale lines on his forehead. Frigga had told Thor that it was because Loki was of another realm, from the land of the Frost Giants – though she sternly told him to use the word Jotun instead. Loki was a prince as well, and now he would also be a prince in Asgard.

Loki didn’t look like a giant, though. He looked tiny, even more so in the huge throne room, and he clung to his enormous nurse’s furs until she ruffled his hair and left. Then he just looked lost and scared.

Thor had wanted a little brother so that he could play with him and lead him to wild adventures and glorious battles. But when he saw how _little_ his little brother was, he suddenly understood what his mother had meant when she had told him that yes, he could play with his brother, but as the elder of the two, he would also have to take care of him. That was what brothers did, she had said.

So Thor, suddenly aware of this new great responsibility upon his shoulders, went to Loki and got on his knees before him, like Frigga always did to him when he was upset.

“Hey, Loki,” he said, smiling. “I’m Thor. I’m your new big brother and I’ll protect you from now on.”

Loki looked at him with his huge red eyes welling with unshed tears, and clutched at his own cloak with his tiny blue hands now that his nurse had long since left and taken her hems with her. He didn’t say anything.

“Isn’t it great?” Thor said. “You’re a prince of Asgard now, like me! And we’re brothers. That means we will always be together.”

He got up and offered Loki his hand. “Come. I will show you the duck pond. We can play Jormungandr there together when the water gets warmer and mother says we can.”

Loki looked from his outstretched hand to his face, and then seemed to make up his mind. He unclenched his tiny fingers from around a fistful of his cloak, and placed his little hand in Thor’s slightly bigger one.

“I like playing Jormungandr,” he offered a little hesitantly. “I always played Jormungandr at home, in the bath pit.”

Thor beamed at him. He already had so much in common with his little brother!

Loki kept glancing at Thor as Thor led them on, with Frigga and their nurse trailing behind. Finally Loki apparently mustered his courage and asked, “Do you like snakes?”

Thor grinned with all his teeth. “Yeah! I love snakes! They are colourful and really fast and sometimes poisonous. There are snakes here that can kill a bilgesnipe with one bite! I was even bitten by a snake once,” he couldn’t help boasting a little, although he knew it was bad manners and the snake that had bitten him hadn’t even been poisonous at all.

“I like snakes too,” Loki said with significantly more confidence, brightening a little. He no longer looked like he wanted to cry, and Thor called it a victory.

“I will show you all the snakes in the garden,” he promised.

Sadly, the spring was still too early for snakes, but Loki didn’t seem to mind. He looked around with wide eyes, marvelling at everything that Thor pointed to him like there were no gardens in his old realm. He sniffed at one early flower and sneezed, and then looked so scandalized that Thor had to laugh, and he laughed all the sweeter when Loki’s giggles joined him. He showed Loki the Jormungandr pond, though strangely, Loki said the water was okay when he tipped a finger in it. All in all, Loki loved the garden, and Thor couldn’t be happier. They would have so much fun with his brother!

After dinner, which Frigga allowed them to have in the garden since they were both so loath to leave it, Thor pulled Loki along again.

“Come! I want to show you my room!”

He led Loki through the endless corridors of the royal wing until they reached the right door. He pushed it open. “Look! This is where I live.”

He let go of Loki’s hand to put his fists on his hips, like he had seen the stable master do when he was proud of the state of the horses. His room was big, though not as big as the throne room, and there were toy swords and carts and carved animals all over the floor. Thor picked a toy hammer and showed it to Loki. “This is my favourite. It’s just a toy, but it’s made to look like the real hammer we have in our vault. Father says I’ll get it when I become a great warrior.”

But Loki didn’t show as much interest in Mjölnir as Thor thought appropriate. Instead he looked around and clutched at his cloak again. “Is this where I will live, too?”

Thor laughed. “Oh! No. You’re a prince! Of course you have your own room all for yourself. It’s right next to mine, let’s go see it!”

But Loki didn’t follow him. “All for myself?” he repeated. “Alone?”

“Yeah, isn’t it cool? I’ll show you.”

But Loki’s already round cheeks puffed out as he pouted. “I don’t want to see it,” he said firmly.

Thor frowned, baffled. “Huh? Why not? It’s just like mine, I promise.”

Loki shook his head furiously and his little fists tightened on his cloak. “No. I don’t like it.”

His sudden obstinacy frustrated Thor. “You can’t say that you don’t like it when you haven’t even seen it yet.”

But Loki remained stubborn, and refused to leave until it was bedtime and Frigga came to collect him for a bath. Loki clearly still felt shy around their mother, because he didn’t resist when she took his hand and led him out of Thor’s room.

Thor followed them, because he hadn’t actually seen Loki’s room either yet, and wanted to make sure that it indeed was just like his so that Loki would have no reason to dislike it.

It _was_ pretty much the same, with similar curtains and the same bed with different animals carved into the bedposts. Still, Thor didn’t leave after his curiosity had been satisfied, but begged their mother to let him bath with Loki, since it was their first day together. Frigga laughed, and bathed them herself, sending their nurse away for the night. Loki didn’t complain, but he was quiet the entire time and didn’t even show Thor how he played Jormungandr even though Thor asked. Then Frigga asked that Thor didn’t show his own version of Jormungandr either, because Jormungandr did, indeed, live in their pond in the garden and not in the baths at all. It dampened Thor’s mood a little, but Frigga ruffled his hair and kissed the top of Loki’s head.

“I know this is all new and you probably miss your old home,” she said gently to Loki, stroking his soapy black curls. “But you will get used to this in no time, I’m sure. Don’t worry.”

Afterwards, she tucked Loki into his new bed, and kissed him again and wished him good night, and then she ushered Thor out and into his own room.

 

 

 

It took Thor a few days to realise that Loki avoided his own room. After he left it in the morning for breakfast with Thor and sometimes their nurse, sometimes their mother, he didn’t go back in there until it was bedtime again or he absolutely had to. Every time Thor suggested that they play in Loki’s room, Loki had a reason why they should go to Thor’s room instead, or the garden, or some other place in the palace that Loki hadn’t seen yet. Whenever it got close to bedtime, Loki would suggest that they play hide and seek in the garden or the palace library, and only when their nurse scolded them for it did Thor understand that it was Loki’s trick to avoid his room a little longer. He never put up a fuss when he was finally taken there, but he always walked a bit like Thor when he knew he was to receive a scolding from their father.

One night, when Thor was in his bed already and his room had been dark for a long time, he finally got up and tiptoed to his door. He opened it; no guards. He knew their mother refused to have soldiers in the nurseries, because she had said so and because her magic was strong enough protection, and so Thor faced no resistance when he crept to his brother’s door and silently pulled it open. He wasn’t sure what made him do so. Possibly it was his big brother instinct. He had been a big brother for a week now, so his instincts should be at their sharpest already.

He pushed the door closed as quietly as he could and tiptoed towards Loki’s bed. Loki didn’t react to his visit, and when Thor got closer, he understood why.

He heard the quiet sniffling only when he had already reached the bed. He couldn’t see Loki in it, but he did see a little shaking mound under the soft duvet. The thick blanket was probably why he hadn’t heard Loki’s crying earlier, or why Loki hadn’t heard him enter.

Worry pulled at Thor’s chest, and he whispered, “Loki?”

The sniffling ended abruptly. The little mound stilled, like there was no boy in the bed at all.

Thor climbed on the bed and put his palm on the mound; a shin, probably. “Loki, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Loki kept silent. Thor cast a look around the room, just in case. He was the big brother after all, and he had to make sure his brother was in no danger. “There are no monsters here, I promise. You can come out.”

Loki finally made a sound, something that sounded vaguely like a ‘no’.

“Are you hurt?” Thor asked again.

The blanket rustled ‘no’ when Loki shook his head.

“Come out?”

Again, a rustled ‘no’.

Thor pursed his lips. Something was obviously wrong. He had to find a way to help his little brother. “Can I come in there, then?”

A pensive silence, and then a tiny muffled, “Yes.”

Thor shuffled around until he found the edge of the duvet, and crawled underneath it. It was really warm there, and dark, but he could still make out his brother’s outlines. He settled on his side, face to face with Loki.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered again.

Loki inhaled like he prepared to answer, but then sniffled again and began crying, quiet, muffled sobs. Thor wrapped his arm around him.

“Are you afraid?” he asked. He himself had been afraid of the dark before, a little, and a long time ago. He wasn’t any more. But Loki was small and could be afraid of many things still.

“I hate this room,” Loki sniffled.

Thor was about to get exasperated again, but then he pursed his lips and thought about it. It was still all new to Loki, and unfamiliar, especially in the dark. Indeed, the room’s ceiling went up so high that it was swallowed in blackness, and Loki felt so small beneath Thor’s arm. Thor thought about the duvet safely tucked over and around them.

It was such a small Loki in such a big room.

“Are you hiding from the room?”

Loki lay still beside him, but then Thor felt him nod. Then, timidly, “You said that we are brothers and that we would be together always.”

Thor’s chest burst with his brother-instincts again. He shuffled a little closer to Loki, so that Loki’s sharp knees pressed against his belly and Loki’s soft hair tickled his nose.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and suddenly he wanted to cry, too. Loki was right – Thor had only just got him, and Thor had made a promise to him, and then he had abandoned Loki every night even though Loki was afraid. That wasn’t what big brothers were supposed to do. How could he protect Loki from the other room? No, there was no question about it – he had to stay, like he had promised. Thor would not leave him any more, not when his little brother needed him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again through his tears. “I won’t ever leave you again. I promise.”

“Not even tomorrow?” Loki asked, hope and worry evident in his quiet voice.

Thor wiped his own nose with the back of his palm. “Not even tomorrow. And not on the day after that, or the day after that.”

Loki curled tighter to Thor. “They always take me,” he said, miserable.

“Let them,” Thor said with determination. “They can’t keep us apart. Even if they try, I will always sneak back to you when they go, like today. Or you can sneak to my bed. But you won’t have to be alone any more.”

He hugged Loki fiercely. “We are brothers, Loki. We will always be together.”

“Always?” Loki asked, and Thor resolved then and there to never cease striving to be worthy of the trust in his brother’s voice.

“Yes,” he said, and smooched a wet kiss on Loki’s forehead. “Always.”

 

 

 

It wasn’t even a week later that Frigga shook her head, amused, and had Loki’s things moved into Thor’s room. When she was spreading fresh bedding over the boys’ bed, she was abruptly struck with a feeling that it was not the last time she would be preparing shared chambers for them.

And she was right.

 

*

 


End file.
